SECRETARY.
Me? Still me? Clara, I divined it when I saw you out in the garden.
CLARA.
Did you? Oh, the other too!
[Gloomily, as if she were alone.]
He stepped up in front of me—he or I!—Oh, my heart, my accursed heart! In order to prove to him, prove to myself, that it was not so, or to stifle it if it were so, I did what now [Breaks out into tears]—God in Heaven! I would have pity on myself, were I Thou, and Thou I!
SECRETARY.
Clara, be my wife! I came to look once more into your eyes in the old way. Had you not understood the look I should have gone away again without speaking. Everything that I am and have I now offer to you. It is little, but it may grow to be more. I should have been here long ago, but your mother was sick, and then she died.
[Illustration: Alfred Rethel DEATH PLAYING THE FINALE]
CLARA (laughs crazily).